Restitution
by JoelTheCat
Summary: Who shot Will Pope and why. No canon character deaths. Gory descriptions, but no bodies rubbing together. One use of a Bad Word.
1. Chapter 1

Something was screeching in his ears, and the ground was jumping around under him. Earthquake? But why couldn't he see? He tried to sit up, fighting an unexpected surge of nausea, but there was something across his chest.

"Chief Pope?" said a woman with an unfamiliar voice.

He said "Yes," but what came out was some sort of incoherent animal sound.

"Lie still, sir. Do you remember what happened?"

With infinite effort, he got out a recognizable "Uh-uh."

"You've been shot, sir."

His "Uh-uh!" was more forcible this time. He had been wearing a vest. A head shot would have killed him outright, and none of his extremities hurt as much as a bullet wound should.

A hand patted his.

"Easy, Will. Will, It's Fritz Howard. I was at dinner with Brenda when we got the call, and she asked me to ride in with you. Don't panic. Your eyes are swollen shut and you lost a couple of teeth, but they think you'll live."

"Of course he will," said the woman. Paramedic? Of course she was. He was barreling down the road in an ambulance with its siren screaming. In an ambulance, blind, with Brenda's husband. Maybe if he asked nicely the paramedic lady would let him die after all.

Or maybe not. Will still wanted to know what had happened.

"Wahg?" It was supposed to be "What?" but that was the best Will could do. Howard apparently understood, though.

"You took a fairly large rifle round to the back. The vest stopped it-must have come from some distance-but it knocked you down, and you took the door to the Crime Scene Unit to the face."

"Onh." Will was getting better at this. That "oh" had been almost understandable. "Geck... kesh...?"

"Did they catch the shooter? Not yet, but Brenda and her guys are there. She's stalking around the crime scene in a pink chiffon cocktail dress with your blood all over it."

"Besh?" The word might not be understandable, but his tone of alarm conveyed his meaning.

"Vests, yeah, they're all wearing their vests. They're being really careful. They're gonna catch this guy."

"We're coming into the hospital, Agent Howard," the woman said. "Can I ask you to make room for us to unload?"

"Right. I'll see you in a minute, Will."

Something squeezed his fingers, then moved away, and Will realized that he had spent the last few minutes holding Fritz Howard's hand.

Dying was looking like a more acceptable alternative all the time.


	2. Chapter 2

At her best moments, Brenda Leigh Johnson's style made Sharon Raydor think of a Celtic war goddess: regal and deadly. Tonight she looked like one: her delicate shell pink prom dress and her cloud of blond hair were both liberally stained with blood. She stood under a street light, a looming retaining wall shielding her from the line of fire, although the shooter was surely long gone. Her cell phone was pressed to her ear.

"Concussion, cracked ribs, broken nose, broken teeth... what about the bullet, Fritz? Yes, of course we're being careful. Does he think we're fools? He didn't see anything? Yes, I suppose he would have moved if he'd..."

Johnson's eyes met Sharon's, and she stopped speaking, then continued in an entirely different tone of voice.

"Fritzy, I have to go. Just... just stay with him, and if he remembers anything, call me? We ARE being careful, Fritz. Okay, I really have to go." She snapped the phone closed and turned to Sharon. "Captain Raydor, what are you doing here?"

"Investigating an incident involving LAPD personnel that resulted in..."

"You think the shooter was a cop?"

"I have no idea, Chief, but I know the woman who swung the van door was a field investigator."

"Oh. Sorry."

"How is he?"

"Fritz says he was awake for a while... they're working on his nose right now... and that he mainly seems concerned that no one else gets hurt." She peered intently at Sharon's sweater. "Are you wearing a vest?" she demanded.

Sharon hooked a finger in her neckline and pulled it down far enough to exhibit the edge of her Kevlar body armor.

"I didn't get where I am by being quite that stupid," she said.

"Really?"

"Chief Johnson? Where exactly is Investigator Malcolm?"

"Flynn's got her in the house, in the kitchen."

"Then that's where I should be. Good night, Chief."

"Good night," the chief said politely as Sharon walked toward the house. "Captain Raydor!"

"Yes, Chief?"

"Be careful. I've got enough bodies on my hands tonight."

Sharon almost stifled the slight smile, but not quite.

"Of course, Chief. I wouldn't want to be any trouble."  
> <p>


	3. Chapter 3

It was the simplest of simple crime scenes, for which Mike Tao was profoundly grateful. An apartment roof, a parapet, a neat pile of brass in a location with a good view of the other crime scene down the mountain beyond two switchbacks. He watched Captain Raydor get out of her car down below and stalk up the sidewalk in stiletto heels that were likely to get her killed one day, and gave silent thanks that he was not there to watch her inevitable clash with the chief.

Since he had drawn this duty, however, he had best be about it.

"Officer, uh..." Not a good sign. He could not for the life of him remember the man's name.

"Cohen, sir, from the ninety-first."

"Ninety-first? I thought..."

"The one down below is the one-thirteen. The precinct border runs along the canyon. You can't tell with the switchbacks, but that's on the other side."

Tao nodded, mentally zigzagging down the canyon road. Among the mass of dark blue activity a small pink dot appeared. Thank heavens the Chief hadn't been on the scene. She made herself a horribly easy target in those bright clothes.

"Officer Cohen, can we get uniforms going door-to-door...?"

"Already doing it, sir. We had five reports of gunfire just from residents downstairs. The guys are getting statements."

"I don't suppose anybody saw him leave?"

Cohen smiled.

"Even in a ritzy neighborhood like this, Lieutenant, people duck when bullets fly."

"The access door to the roof...?"

"Left open for the residents' convenience. People like the view. Not even a lock on the outside door. I guess that's why the shooter picked this place."

"Uh-huh."

Tao wasn't so sure. A populated place where the shooting would be reported, casings not scattered where they fell but in a neat pile... and how had the shooter known that there would be a crime scene down below to shoot at, much less that Will Pope would be there? He thumbed his cell phone open.

"Chief? We've got the scene pretty much processed and we're getting preliminary reports, but there's something fishy here." 


	4. Chapter 4

When Fritz Howard first became close to Brenda Leigh Johnson, he wondered at her habit of holding his hand whenever she thought he seemed distressed. Now he understood. The whole time Will Pope lay in the ER with a cool blond nurse picking glass and paint chips out of his face, he clutched Fritz's hand.

This was the man who had broken Brenda's heart. He took a traumatized subordinate, disgusted with herself over participating in CIA interrogations, and used her to satisfy his own sick desires. When Brenda found out he was married, Pope blew the whole thing off as if it were nothing, as if she should expect that sort of treatment.

The nurse drew a particularly long shard of glass from beneath Pope's bald scalp. The chief didn't make a sound, but his hand clamped down on Fritz's fingers until it was almost painful.

"It's okay," Fritz said instinctively, and patted Pope's hand with his free one. "It's almost over."

"Only a few more," the nurse said. "Then we'll tape your ribs."

"Ob?" asked Pope.

The nurse, still working, looked blankly at Fritz.

"Is he going home?" Fritz translated with a good deal of doubt in his voice.

"You live together?"

Fritz blinked.

"I beg your pardon?" he said.

The nurse looked down at their joined hands.

"You are the partner, right?"

Instead of jerking his hand away, Pope clutched harder and went into a coughing fit that had definite elements of laughter about it. Of course, Pope couldn't see where the nurse was looking. However, if Fritz told the woman that Pope lived alone with his two elementary-age children, the hospital would admit him, causing publicity and inconvenience to all. Brenda especially would be hughly displeased. She would want Pope available to answer questions. Fritz looked into the nurse's expectant blue eyes.

"That's right," said Fritz, "but we usually don't advertise it."

Pope's coughing fit, which had begun to subside, erupted again.

"It's his job, you see," Fritz added.

"I understand completely," the nurse said, completing her ministrations. "I can just say a friend is caring for him. I'll get his prescriptions and some instruction sheets for you." She stepped out of the examining room.

"Or," said Fritz, "she could say she's releasing you to the guy whose wife you used to sleep with and that the wife was the one who sent me to look after you."

Pope was laughing and coughing so hard that he started to sway. Fritz worried that he might tumble off the examining table. He put an arm around Pope's shoulders and stepped in close to stop the fall. Pope, still laughing, pulled him into an awkward embrace. Fritz found himself returning the hug and joining the laughter, which deepened until tears rolled down Fritz's face. Somehow he knew his relationship with Pope would never be the same after this.

"That's better!" said the nurse from the door. "He's going to need a lot of emotional support, but you should be careful not to damage his ribs."

She looked quite blank when the two men clutched each other harder and continued to laugh. 


	5. Chapter 5

The Chief, Provenza told himself, looked like the main character in a slasher flick. American Werewolf in the LAPD, maybe. While re-enacting her high school prom, he told himself, our heroine finally gives her creepy stalker boss what he deserves. Only Colleen Malcolm was the one who had done for Pope.

Provenza hoped Pope had not been coming on to Colleen. Of course, Provenza also wished Pope had never had anything to do with the Chief. Those two were worse than Gabriel and Daniels, way worse. It wouldn't be so pitiful if the Chief and... well, the Chief and the Chief... didn't care so much about each other, but it was obvious that they did. They were angry, though, angry and bitter, both of them. Their relationship was simply sick, sick beyond anything Provenza had ever seen, sicker even than his own divorces.

Well, maybe not sicker than his third one.

The kitchen door opened, and Provenza almost growled. Sharon Raydor had her arm around Colleen's shoulder, and the girl was looking at the FID captain as if she was Colleen's liferope.

"Everything okay, Colleen?" Provenza asked.

"You know each other?" Raydor snapped.

"I knew her daddy," Provenza said. "Killed in the line in the riots."

"My third year," Raydor said. "I've still got a piece of a .22 round in my leg from that."

"Scared kid came around a corner and I asked him if he was okay," Provenza said, then traced the scar across his scalp. "Clocked me with a baseball bat. Doug... Colleen's daddy got shot trying to rescue an ambulance crew."

"Tragic," Raydor said. She squeezed the girl's shoulders. "I think Colleen is going to be okay, but we have to do something about the safety equipment on those vans before this happens again."

"I didn't even see him," Colleen said. "I am so sorry! You'll tell him, won't you?"

"I'm sure he knows," Raydor told the girl.

"I'll tell him," Provenza said. "She can go?" he asked Raydor.

"I'm through with her," Raydor said. "I was going to get someone to take her home."

"I'll find somebody," said Provenza. "Come on, Colleen. You didn't see anything when Pope got shot?"

"No, sir. I was getting my kit out of the truck, and as I was jumping down I heard the shots."

"Yeah, well, it couldn't have happened to a nicer guy."

"Sir?"

"Never mind. Wait a minute. Shots?"

"Yes, sir. Three shots." 


	6. Chapter 6

Fritz led Pope up the walk to his front door and unlocked it with the other man's keys. A woman's voice screeched at them.

"Where the hell have you been? You are supposed to be here when I drop off these kids. You made me miss my class! Do you have any idea what those classes are costing me?"

Pope, blind and effectively mute, stepped back against Fritz, who instinctively moved between the injured man and the screaming red-haired harpy.

"Excuse me," he asked, "but who are you?"

"What do you mean, who am I? He waltzes in here with you at this hour and you have the nerve to ask me who I am?"

Behind the woman two small forms appeared, a boy of perhaps nine and a girl who might be six or seven. The little girl's eyes grew wide and the beginnings of tears glimmered there.

"D... daddy?" said the boy.

Fritz glared at the woman. "Excuse me," he said, and led Pope into the room and settled him on the sofa. Then Fritz turned to the children and sank down on one knee. "Hello," he said. "I'm Fritz. I'm a friend of your father's. He's going to be all right, but he got hit in the face with a door..."

"My ass!" The woman growled.

"...and his eyes are swelled shut, and his mouth is messed up so he can't talk."

"Wait a minute!" the woman said. "He is supposed to give me 24 hours notice when I have to take care of the kids! If he can't keep up with the terms of the settlement, I am so calling my lawyer."

Fritz stood up and faced the woman squarely. "Ma'am," he said, "you do not 'have' to do anything. Your ex-husband is injured and cannot speak, so he couldn't give me your number, or I would have called you. I apologize for the inconvenience."

"Well, he should think about that kind of thing! I cannot just take those two on at the drop of a hat!"

"There is no need for you to take them. They can stay here with their father and with me."

"He hasn't even bothered to say he's sorry!" she snarled.

"Ah ee," said Pope.

"There," Fritz told her. "Now he has, and since you have other things to do, I suggest you get on with them."

She glared at him for a moment, then spun and stalked out the door. It slammed so hard the lamps and knickknacks shook. Fritz looked back at Pope sitting on the sofa, his face covered in white gauze, and the two children shaking in one another's arms.

"He looks really scary, doesn't he?"

The kids stared up at him, and the little boy nodded.

"He's still your dad, though. He can't talk, but if he could he'd probably tell you he could use a hug." 


	7. Chapter 7

Julio Sanchez had never seen this many dead bodies in one place except in a war zone. Girl, best friend and both boyfriends on or under an L-shaped sectional sofa. Grandmother in bed reading her Bible. Little brother on his stomach in front of his video game in a sticky pool of blood.

Parents, apparently, in New York for two weeks.

Upper-class white kids and a little old lady did not get hit in their own homes. There had to be something more going on here.

There was. While Major Crimes investigated this multiple murderer, a sniper had shot Chief Pope.

Unfortunately they hadn't killed him, but they'd made a good try. And now the Chief, the real chief, was prowling the crime scene demanding to know why she hadn't been called in the first place, and no one was saying.

It worried Sanchez a bit. When a man gets shot, the woman he did wrong is usually a suspect, particularly if she wasn't where she was supposed to be at the time of the shooting.

Sanchez had no reason to believe that the Chief would hurt Pope. Besides, Brenda Leigh Johnson could not have found this place with a map and a GPS, let alone figured out that there was a line of fire from the buildings up the canyon. Also, if she wanted Pope dead all she had to do was let Sanchez know.

She pulled the pink skirt up around her knees and sank down beside the little boy. It would have been a pathetic scene, had she not peered at the child's wounds with such eerie intensity.

The kitchen door opened, and Captain Raydor appeared, wearing spiky heals and old-fashioned stockings with a black line down the center of the back. No booties. If she came in here like that the Chief would have a fit. She was watching the Chief, watching like a cat watches some particularly toothsome rodent. Provenza came up behind Raydor and spoke to her. The Captain asked a few questions, but apparently he had the answers Raydor wanted because she shrugged and stepped back into the kitchen. Provenza watched her go, then came to Sanchez.

"Headed that off," he said. "Chief was at Chez Marc with her husband and they had to wait, so the maître de was watching them and the staff was being really attentive. They got all the witnesses they need."

"So Raydor will be out of our hair at least long enough to track them all down and interview them?"

"She's not that bad," Provenza said.

"She's FID."

"Wonder why?" said Provenza. "I mean, that's not a way I ever thought about going."

Sanchez couldn't imagine what to say in response to that. 


	8. Chapter 8

"Chief Johnson is on scene," Russel Taylor told the gaggle of reporters that had ambushed him coming out of the mens' room. "She will undoubtedly update..."

"Who, Commander?" asked the kid from the Times. "Who does Chief Johnson report to, if Pope is out of commission?"

"Not me," Taylor told him, "but I am sure that as soon as she has something to report, she will make a report. Now please excuse me. Please?"

If she didn't, Taylor would have track her down and extract something one way or the other. When he ran an investigation, the people in charge knew exactly what was happening every minute, at least as long as what was happening made Taylor look good, and the people in charge made sure the press heard exactly what they needed to hear.

And if, on rare occasions, what was said turned out to be... overly optimistic, that was certainly not Taylor's fault. He had never suggested that any of that information be released. His superiors had run off at the mouth, and Taylor had been blamed. That was not going to happen to him again. He would control the release of information, and would make available only what suited his purposes.

But he couldn't say anything until Johnson figured out who she was supposed to report to and did it. Given the woman's penchant for acting first and asking permission later, that could be a very long time. Of course, all that time she would be digging herself in deeper, and when she finally did come out Taylor would be able to spin each detail any way he needed to.

However, until he knew if Pope had survived, he couldn't let anyone know that Chief Johnson had been late to the party. Pope would not appreciate any criticism of his favorite, even if it happened to be true. The man had a big blind spot where his mistress was concerned. Pope did not believe for a minute that Johnson had not bought her position by resuming her affair with Pope, who was obviously utterly besotted with her.

However, if Pope was dead, Brenda Leigh Johnson's days with the LAPD were numbered, and that number was a very small one indeed. 


	9. Chapter 9

Provenza couldn't figure it out. Four teenagers, no sign of drugs or even beer, blood and bullets everywhere. No prints in the plush carpet where the little boy was found; his killer had shot him from the doorway in passing and kept on going. The grandmother's hearing aid was on the dresser across from her bed, so she had apparently heard nothing at all. Nothing had been stolen. Nothing was disturbed except the things the kids had knocked over when they were shot. The shooters had entered the house, killed everyone inside and then left, period. It simply did not make any kind of sense.

"Why didn't you call the Chief?"

He looked down at Sanchez, who was sitting at the hall table going through messages and an old-fashioned paper address book he had found under the telephone.

"How do you know I didn't call her?" Provenza asked.

"'Cause she was yelling at you for not doing it?"

"Keep your voice down," Provenza snarled, glancing toward Chief Johnson, who was examining the titles in the murdered boy's collection of video games. "Whoever called me said she'd already been called."

"'Whoever?'"

"Okay, 'whomever.'"

"You didn't get the name?"

"What, did you?" Provenza snapped. "Do you ever, when you get a call? It's just a dispatcher."

"Your friend in there will have you logging that kind of thing."

"What friend?"

"Raydor."

"She's not my friend." She was just the only person in this house with even half Provenza's experience with the LAPD. The others were young or mid-career transfers. The riot talk had brought that home to Provenza. "But she's maybe not our enemy, either."

"You hot for her?" Sanchez demanded.

"No, I am not hot for her! And what does that have to do with me not remembering the name of the dispatcher?"

"A dispatcher who told you the Chief had already been called."

"...and would meet me here. When Pope got shot I called to see what was holding her up, and that was the first she heard of it."

Provenza frowned for a minute, then looked hard at Sanchez.

"Don't go paranoid on me," he said, "but I think maybe I am going to go catch Captain Raydor before she leaves." 


	10. Chapter 10

The worst thing about teenagers, Flynn told himself, was that they believe they are adults and their parents think they are toddlers, and neither was completely right. He had one couple in Interview One, a trio in Interview Two and a grandfather and his twenty-something girlfriend in Pope's conference room, 'cause he figured Chief Pope wouldn't be using it any time soon. All of them wanted to know where their children were. The fathers seemed to think the kids had been arrested, and the mothers wanted to know if they should take them to the hospital.

And if Flynn mentioned the word "morgue" Brenda Leigh Johnson would put him in it right alongside the kids. She would want to talk to these people herself, to break the news herself and watch their reactions. Flynn was a hardened investigator, but the whole process seemed horribly ghoulish.

The door to the Murder Room squeaked open.

"Chief?" he called. It was about time...

"Nobody here but us chickens," said Russell Taylor. "The rest of them not back yet?"

"She sent me back to watch the families."

"I thought the families were out of town."

"There were guests, teenagers. Their families."

"So you're babysitting."

"Yeah."

Uncomfortable silence settled over them.

"You never did that when you worked for me."

"I know."

"I'm just saying, three shots fired at police, you'd think she'd need her whole team."

"She does need me. She needs me here."

"If you say so." Taylor said with a smile.

"I do say so, I do. I... Hey, how many...?"

"How many what?"

"The whole time, in Robbery/Homicide, how many... how many families killed their own kids?"

Taylor rubbed his chin.

"It happens," he said. "Is that what happened here?"

"We don't know yet, but... but I was just trying to get my head around it."

He almost stumbled when Taylor clapped him on the back.

"Just be glad you haven't got it in your head," he said. "And Andy? I'm glad we can talk again."

"Yeah," said Flynn. "Me, too. Thanks, Commander."

"Oh, no," Taylor said. "Thank you." 


	11. Chapter 11

"Not nearly done," Brenda said into her phone. "We're through at the house, but I still need to interview the families. I'll go home and change... why do you need the car? To take what kids to school? Fritz, you didn't have to go that far." Her crew was gathering around her, waiting for instructions. "That is unbelievable. But Fritz, I can't... it's just a bad idea for me to meet his kids."

The detectives were watching Brenda with interest now.

"All right," she said, "I'll take care of it. Is there anything I can tell my team? Okay, Chief Pope is home but off work... he can get his eyes open now, but he's really groggy because of the concussion, and... did we find all his teeth?"

"In evidence, Chief," said Sanchez.

"SID has them," she told Fritz. "Okay, his nose is broken and he can't talk and he's having an affair with my husband."

In the shocked silence she took the phone from her ear and looked at it as if it were an alien artifact that had suddenly materialized in her hand. Then she snapped it shut.

"My husband," she said, "who has an extremely strange sense of humor, and who is going to explain that comment in detail at a later date. Sergeant Gabriel, I need to swing by the house for a minute and then take Fritz the car. Can you follow me and give me a ride back, please? Or maybe it would be better if I followed you."

"Hey, Chief?" Provenza was standing by the stairs with Sharon Raydor. "Can we have a minute?" the man asked.

This night was never going to end. At least Raydor hadn't heard what she had automatically repeated to her crew. Brenda slipped the traitorous phone into her pocket.

"Is this going to take long?" she demanded, not of Provenza but of Raydor. The woman was strangely gentle when she answered.

"It might," she said.

"Go on back with the others, then, Sergeant Gabriel. Thank you. Lieutenant Provenza can chauffeur me around." 


	12. Chapter 12

"So," said Gabriel, "who gets the fun job?"

"What's that?" Sanchez asked.

"Getting alibis off all the women who have it in for Pope."

"The entire female population of Southern California?"

"And most of DC, I guess. Maybe we should get the Chief to make that call. I mean, knew him back then, and... oh, God, no."

"Watch the road or let me drive," Sanchez told him. "The Chief was at a restaurant. Lots of witnesses. Provenza called and checked."

"Yeah, well, the Chief would at least understand why we have to ask. How about her husband?"

"With her. Maître de said he offered them free drinks a couple of times while they waited, but Howard wouldn't take one. They're saving the parking lot tape for us, to give us time in and out. I think she's covered."

"I dunno. Captain Raydor can make anything look... real bad."

"Provenza's sucking up to her," Sanchez said. "He says it's okay."

"Sucking up?"

"Yeah, acting like... you know, like he's..."

"Oh, man," said Gabriel, "Oh, why did you put that image in my head? I am gonna be scarred for life!"

"Provenza may wind up with some scars, himself."

"No lie. Okay, okay, so who else is Pope doing?" Gabriel asked. "For real, I mean?"

"I dunno," said Sanchez, "but I'd look at every female detective who's been promoted since he's been here."

"Including Daniels?"

Sanchez winced.

"Probably not," he said, "She's smart about men. Except, you know, you."

"Gee, thanks."

"But we're still going to have to ask her."

"You are going to have to ask her," Gabriel told him. "I am not having that conversation with Irene Daniels."

"Okay," said Sanchez, "then I will talk to the ladies at Parker Center, and you can go deal with the ex- Mrs. Pope and any of her wannabe successors."

"Oh, yeah," said Gabriel. "You got the short end of that stick."

"Be careful. Pope likes women that can take care of themselves."

"You telling me to be careful? Just you remember, every woman you're gonna talk to carries a gun." 


	13. Chapter 13

In the end, Lieutenant Provenza drove Brenda home while Captain Raydor trailed them in her own car.

"So what is so important that you are turning that woman loose on me?" Brenda asked him.

"The guy on the apartment roof probably wasn't the only shooter."

"Obviously. Fifteen rounds, y'all would have noticed. The site was a fake."

"So far we've only found the round that was caught in Pope's vest. It was a .416."

"Elephant gun? Somebody wanted to put him down."

"We don't believe any shots from the roof were actually aimed at the... the crime scene. We think somebody dumped the brass, fired off a couple of rounds to attract attention and left, while the real shooter with the heavy gun was much closer."

"Have we found where yet?"

"Still looking. Also, the kid in the crime scene van heard three shots."

"One bullet, fifteen casings and three shots fired. Yes, lieutenant, I'd say something is weird, there."

"There's some other things... is this it?"

"Let me think about that much while I'm changing, and we'll talk again. Watch for the cat."

Apparently Lieutenant Provenza didn't listen to the last part. When Brenda emerged ten minutes later, having showered and donned office clothes, she found Sharon Raydor sitting on Provenza's shoulder apprehending the fugitive Joel, who had fled up the young cypress tree in Brenda's yard. With the cat safely back indoors, they resumed their journey.

"You two are getting awfully chummy," she told Provenza.

"I opened the door to bring in your paper. He bolted."

"I meant Captain Raydor."

"I don't think your cat likes her all that well, Chief."

"He might. He's fascinated by rats."

At Pope's, Fritz popped two red-haired children in school uniforms into the car and took the keys from Provenza, saying they were already late.

The little girl looked up at Brenda.

"Are you one of Daddy's whores?" she asked.

Brenda's jaw twitched, but she smiled at the little girl.

"Is that what your mommy says?" she asked the child. The girl nodded.

"Well, that was a long time ago, and what's important right now is that we get you to school, okay?"

They found Pope sitting on his sofa in sweats watching the morning news.

"You ah maheed to da nizest guy on ert," he told Brenda.

"People keep telling me my taste is improving," she replied. "Are you going to be all right?"

"Uh-huh."

"Good, then I'm going to kill you."

"Uh?"

"My husband claims he's having an affair with you?"

"Uh-uh, he 'us to' urs at."

"I beg your pardon?"

"Chief," said Captain Raydor in a cautionary tone, "why don't you let me try?"

"Yeah," said Provenza, "let's find out what he knows first. Then you can kill him." 


	14. Chapter 14

"Don't anybody go in the break room," said Gabriel. He strode to his desk, making no attempt to conceal the damp stain that reached from his neck to his lap.

"Why?" asked Tao.

Gabriel slammed a sheaf of papers down on his desk in frustration.

"'Cause we're out of interview rooms and conference rooms and everything else and I've got a crazy lady handcuffed to the sink down there with a uniform watching her, and the uniform may not survive if you distract him, is why!"

"We can't put 'em in lockup," Flynn told him, "and we can't put 'em in all together. Just do the best you can."

"Anybody we know?" asked Sanchez.

"Estelle Pope." The pitch of his voice rose to a mockery of the woman's screech. "My husband is an assistant chief of police and he'll have your badge!"

"Surprised she didn't get his in the divorce," said Flynn.

"You do have some reason to detain this woman, don't you?" asked Tao.

Gabriel exhibited his ruined clothes.

"Assaulting a police officer? With a carafe of orange juice?"

Gabriel took a deep breath and turned to Sanchez.

"How's your half of the deal coming?"

"Eighteen done out of nineteen, and I'm not dead yet." His expression softened a bit. "Irene said she wouldn't touch the creep with a ten-foot pole after what he did to the Chief. Told you she was smart about men."

"I don't know. That means she might have messed around with a supervisor if she hadn't known... Okay, I've got to go try to interview this screaming... woman. Anybody want to come along?"

"Oh, no!" Flynn went back to his paperwork, and Tao discovered something fascinating on his computer screen.

"You're the one didn't want to interview the ones with the guns," Sanchez reminded him.

"Don't remind me."

Gabriel assembled the proper forms in a file folder, appropriated a pen from Tao's desk and headed downstairs to face his nemesis. 


	15. Chapter 15

Sharon settled in the chair beside Pope's sofa. He looked like a movie mummy, with gauze wrapped all around his head so that only the brilliant blue eyes peered out at her. A hard look moved both Provenza and Johnson back a step, and she turned her attention back to the injured man.

"Chief Pope," she said, "what do you remember about the incident last night?"

Pope shrugged.

"Was there anyone on the scene who should not..."

Pope shook his head and tried to stand up. Provenza helped him, and Pope beckoned for them to follow him into the study. He sat down in front of his laptop and opened a text editor.

"I don't remember anything," he typed, "and I am not sleeping with Fritz. He just told the nurse we were partners so the hospital wouldn't keep me overnight."

"Chief," said Provenza, "how many shots did you hear?"

Pope typed a single digit, "3."

"I thought the other witnesses said one," Chief Johnson said.

"We did," said Provenza. "I was in the living room with the teenagers. Tao and Flynn were in the grandmother's room, and Gabriel was with the little boy. Sanchez was outside in back watching the perimeter, but I asked him and he only heard one shot. Colleen Malcolm... the girl who swung the door, and by the way, chief, she said she's really sorry..."

Pope nodded and beckoned for Provenza to continue.

"She heard three, too."

"That was a pretty big yard," Raydor said. "Plenty of room for someone to hide between the house and the street..."

"So that the people behind the second shooter only heard the one shot," Johnson finished.

"It was an elephant gun," Provenza reminded her.

"That big retaining wall would have bounced it away... made it echo the other way."

"He would have to have been very close," Raydor observed.

"Close enough that a round of that size would have gone right through Kevlar." said Johnson.

"He got away?" Pope typed.

"Or just melted into the crowd," said Provenza. "There were neighbors gathered around until the shooting started. One more person running away wouldn't have attracted that much notice."

"We're canvassing," Johnson assured them.

"Another thing," said Provenza, "the dispatcher who called me said she'd already spoken to the... to Chief Johnson, and that she would meet me at the crime scene. The Chief says she never got that call."

"Chief Pope," asked Raydor, "how did you come to be at the crime scene?"

"Dispatcher called," he typed. "Said Brenda needed me. Children murdered."

Brenda shook her head at the others.

"I didn't even know about it until after Will got shot. And how would a dispatcher know that there were children murdered? All we usually tell them is multiple homicide."

"Who hates me this much?" typed Pope.

Lieutenant Provenza held up his hands as if to start counting. Sharon glared at him, and Johnson batted his hand down. Then she stepped up beside the desk and took one of Pope's hands in both of hers.

"I don't know, Will," Brenda Johnson said, "but I promise you we are going to find out." 


	16. Chapter 16

"Good morning!" called the Chief when she finally made it in, trailed by Lieutenant Provenza and Captain Raydor. "So, where are we?"

Tao told her, and she went from room to room telling people their children were dead. Well, there was no time like the present, Sanchez told himself.

"Captain Raydor?" he called. "May I speak with you for a moment?"

"Of course, Sergeant," she said, pulling out her notepad. "Shall we wait for an interview room...?"

"I don't think it's necessary," he said, and held up his own notepad. "And it's for my case. Would you sit down, please?"

She sank into his chair, her expression quiet but intensely curious.

"Captain," he said, "in the course of our investigation today I have spoken with eighteen of the nineteen women ranked detective and above who have been promoted since Chief Pope came to the LAPD and asked each one, well, if she had slept with him."

"You can't do that," Raydor said. "You cannot question people based on their gender..."

"I got six yeses," Sanchez said. The murder room had gone utterly quiet. "Not counting... incidents that occurred before either party came to work here."

"Then FID should be investigating..."

"You can't." Sanchez looked behind him and saw the Chief coming back from the conference room. "You can't," she repeated, "any more than I can, until you answer Detective Sanchez' question."

"He hasn't asked me a question," said Raydor.

"I was about to," Sanchez said. "So... is it six, or seven?"

For a smart lady, Sharon Raydor took a long while to catch on. When she did, though, it hit her all at once.

"No," she said. "No, I didn't, but it doesn't matter."

"How's that?" said Tao.

"Because if it happened to anyone, it taints every woman here. We all lose all credibility. I did everything right, and still..." She bit her lip, furious tears flowing down her face, and balled her fists in her lap. Sanchez set a box of tissues where she could reach it, but she just stared at her knees.

Then Chief Johnson moved. She came and crouched beside Raydor.

"Sharon," she said, "I am so sorry. I made a mistake all those years ago, and now it's going to hurt a whole bunch of innocent people, and..."

Raydor buried her face in her hands, and the Chief went down on her knees in front of her. She took Raydor's hands between hers.

"Sharon, there has got to be a way to fix this. We have to fix it, for them, for you. You know the system better than anyone, Sharon. Help me fix this, please."

Raydor sniffed and met the Chief's eyes. Johnson offered her a tissue, but Raydor just kept looking at the Chief.

"We need a confession," she said.

"All right," said the chief. "I can make that happen. Just help me figure out who, and I will make that happen. Okay? Are we okay?"

Raydor nodded, and then leaned forward and hugged the Chief really hard. 


	17. Chapter 17

"That woman is pea-turkey craz..." said Gabriel, then fell silent when he saw the people in the murder room. The Chief was on her knees holding Captain Raydor, who seemed to have been crying. That was enough to bring on a reality check, right there. Sanchez sat beside them, furiously scribbling in a notebook. Tao and Provenza stood nearby, arms crossed defensively, and Flynn was sitting at his desk with his chin on his interlaced fingers.

"And apparently," he continued, "she's contagious."

The Chief looked up at him, her arms still resting in Raydor's lap.

"What woman, Sergeant?" she asked.

"Estelle Pope. That woman bit a uniformed officer!"

"Where is she now?" asked Raydor in an unsteady voice.

"Holding, waiting for her lawyer."

"She didn't shoot at her husband. She was with the children."

"She assaulted two police officers and counting," Gabriel told her.

"With a deadly jug of lemonade," said Flynn.

"Hey, it was a glass carafe, and it was heavy! I've got bruises!"

"Get photographs for the record," said Raydor, who seemed to be recovering herself.

The chief smiled wickedly.

"Do what the lady tells you," she instructed Gabriel. "The longer we keep Mrs. Pope in jail, the better off her children will be."

The chief hugged Raydor again, and then stood up.

"Okay," Johnson said, "so where are we?"

"All six victims have alibis," Sanchez said. "They all check. Besides, I doubt any of them could handle that size rifle."

"They have husbands," said Johnson.

"It could have been a woman," Gabriel said. "Almost anyone could get off one round, even with a heavy load."

"Three rounds," said the Chief.

"Two of which we haven't found yet," Provenza reminded her.

Flynn sat back in his chair.

"People," he said, "who... who knows that there were three shots?"

The Chief raised her hand, and Raydor and Provenza.

"And Fritz and Will," said the Chief.

"Colleen Malcolm," Provenza added.

"Have any of you told anyone?" All three shook their heads.

"Pope can't tell anyone anything," said Gabriel.

"He can type," said Provenza.

"Chat," said Tao, "or Facebook, or email..."

"Will has more sense," said the Chief. "So does Fritz. The girl?"

"I called her mom. Colleen took a sleeping pill and she's still out."

Raydor looked up at Flynn.

"What is it, Andy?" she asked.

"It wasn't just the women and their boyfriends. It was the men who didn't get promoted because these women did." He looked up at the Chief. "I know who you need to interview," he said. 


	18. Chapter 18

It took them only a couple of hours to make the case. Flynn was dispatched to run interference and, in elaborate subterfuge, was caught by Gabriel conversing with the enemy. All three were invited up to Major Crimes, where Captain Raydor called Flynn into Interview One, Gabriel was told to wait his turn and Commander Taylor was invited into Interview Two. As soon as the door closed behind Taylor, Gabriel, Flynn and Raydor joined the gaggle around the monitor. Brenda picked up her case notes and started the long walk toward the interview room.

"Hey, Chief?" called Provenza. "Knock him dead."

Brenda looked into Sharon Raydor's eyes.

"I'll get him," she promised. The other woman nodded.

"I know you will," she said.

Brenda took a deep breath and breezed into the interview room.

"Commander Taylor, thank you so much for speaking to me today. I just have a few tiny questions about the car."

"The car?" Taylor said. "I thought..."

"Yes," she said, "the unmarked unit that you signed out this morning that was found on my crime scene with three bullet holes in it."

"Well, Chief, there was a shooting. Police cars do tend to get bullet holes in them."

"Yes, but Commander, how did the car get there in the first place? It was signed out to you."

"Uh... yeah, I was there. You know, since Chief Pope has me working as your press liaison, and, if you don't mind my saying, Chief, you are not always the most forthcoming..."

"So you were there checking up on me?"

"That isn't how I would phrase it..."

"I imagine not. I'm especially interested in how you came to be checking up on me," she said as she slapped a photograph down on the table between them, "thirty-five minutes before the shooting occurred."

Taylor turned pale as he looked down at the picture, a shot from a traffic camera that plainly showed him alone in the car.

"Chief," he said, "I am authorized to use a police unit. I can go where I like."

"That's true," she said. "A great improvement on your great-grandfather. World War II hero comes back to California and the only work he can get is guiding rich white men hunting grizzly bears? Quite a comedown." She laid a faded black-and-white photograph on the table. It showed a hunter standing beside a dead bear. In the background Taylor's great-grandfather stood holding a rifle.

"That's a big gun he used," Brenda observed. "A rare gun. He brought it back from England, didn't he? A .415 he bought off a big game hunter who'd used it on elephants and rhinoceroses, a gun like the ones the old-time mobsters used to shoot right through cars? Kind of spoiled their aim, but it worked. Lieutenant Flynn tells me you still have that gun hanging over your fireplace."

Taylor said nothing, not even when Provenza and Sanchez stepped into the room and stood behind him.

"So tell me, Commander Taylor," Brenda finished, "if the search warrants currently being executed at your home and your office are going to turn up a .415 elephant gun that matches the shell casings we found under that police car that had been shot up from the inside? Or even the pistol you used when you walked through that house and calmly murdered everyone in it just to set up a shot at Will Pope and try to pin it on me?"

Taylor finally found his voice.

"I want my union rep," he said, "and a lawyer."

"We can do that if you want, Lieutenant, but if this case goes to trial there'll be a lot of publicity... you know about publicity. The mayor will call in all sorts of chips to be sure the rogue cop spends the rest of his life in the general population of a maximum security prison. Or you can tell me what you know, and spend a somewhat longer life in a less unpleasant facility. Either way, I'm going to need your badge and your gun now."

At that point Provenza laid his hands on Taylor's shoulders. Sanchez reached down and secured the weapon from Taylor's belt and the one from his ankle holster as well as his badge.

It took Taylor another twenty minutes of vitriol to confess to attempting to kill Pope and frame Brenda for it so as to enhance his career prospects, and to name the other officers who had assisted him and say where he had disposed of the weapons. As Sanchez hustled the handcuffed Taylor from the room, the watchers joined the chief inside and Flynn handed her a Ding Dong. Brenda thanked him and passed Taylor's statement to Sharon Raydor.

"Will that do it?" she asked. "There won't have to be a trial? We're all going to be okay?"

The woman squeezed Brenda's shoulder.

"We are going to be way better than okay," she said. 


End file.
